Children S Authors

"... the scars left by violence and sexual assault don't disappear, no matter how loved you are, and no matter how much money you've made. My perennial jumpiness is a family joke — and even I know it's funny — but I pray my daughters never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven't heard them approaching."

"I've been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn't because I'm ashamed those things happened to me, but because they're traumatic to revisit and remember."

"But, as many women have said before me, 'woman' is not a costume. 'Woman' is not an idea in a man's head. 'Woman' is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the 'inclusive' language that calls female people 'menstruators' and 'people with vulvas' strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who've had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it's not neutral, it's hostile and alienating."

"It isn't enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves."

"I've read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don't have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive."

"From the leader of the free world's long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of 'grabbing them by the pussy', to the incel ('involuntarily celibate') movement that rages against women who won't give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else."

"We're living through the most misogynistic period I've experienced....Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now."

"The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law."

"Again and again I've been told to 'just meet some trans people.' I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who's older than I am and wonderful."

"I'm concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility."

"... as a much-banned author, I'm interested in freedom of speech."

"If you didn't already know — and why should you? — "TERF" is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. ... Ironically, radical feminists aren't even trans-exclusionary — they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women."

"What I didn't expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive."

"'This isn't an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it's time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity."

"The long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones have been now been tracked over a lengthy period. These side-effects are often minimised or denied by trans activists."

"Many, myself included, believe we are watching a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function."

"If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth."

"Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill"

"If I try harder I might be reincarnated as a lonely virgin hiding behind a cartoon frog."

"I don't think I've ever wanted magic more."

"I had a bunch of racists telling me that because Hermione 'turned white' – that is, lost colour from her face after a shock – that she must be a white woman, which I have a great deal of difficulty with. But I decided not to get too agitated about it and simply state quite firmly that Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm."

"How horrible. Voldemort was nowhere near as bad."

"The Internet doesn’t just offer opportunities for misogynistic abuse, you know. Penis enlargers can also be bought discreetly."

"The world is full of wonderful things you haven’t seen yet. Don’t ever give up on the chance of seeing them."

"No story lives unless someone wants to listen. The stories we love best do live in us forever. So, whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home."

"I think most of us if you were asked to name a very evil regime would think of Nazi Germany. … I wanted Harry to leave our world and find exactly the same problems in the Wizarding world. So you have to the intent to impose a hierarchy, you have bigotry, and this notion of purity, which is a great fallacy, but it crops up all over the world. People like to think themselves superior and that if they can pride themselves on nothing else, they can pride themselves on perceived purity. … The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth."

"We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better."

"Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripen'd in our northern sky."

"So when destruction lurks unseen, Which men like mice may share, May some kind angel clear thy path, And break the hidden snare."

"The cheerful light, the vital air, Are blessings widely given; Let nature's commoners enjoy The common gifts of heaven.The well-taught philosophic mind To all compassion gives; Casts round the world an equal eye, And feels for all that lives.If mind, as ancient sages taught, A never dying flame, Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms, In every form the same, Beware, lest in the worm you crush A brother's soul you find; And tremble lest thy luckless hand Dislodge a kindred mind."

"If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd, And spurn'd a tyrant's chain, Let not thy strong oppressive force A free-born mouse detain."

"Oh! hear a pensive captive's prayer, For liberty that sighs; And never let thine heart be shut Against the prisoner's cries."

"This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars."

"With Thee in shady solitudes I walk, With Thee in busy, crowded cities talk, In every creature own Thy forming power, In each event Thy providence adore."

"I read his awful name, emblazon'd high With golden letters on th' illumin'd sky."

"Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew, In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew.[…] Gay without toil, and lovely without art, They spring to cheer the sense, and glad the heart."

"It is to hope, tho' hope were lost."

"O gently guide my pilgrim feet To find thy hermit cell; Where in some pure and equal sky Beneath thy soft indulgent eye The modest virtues dwell."

"Let us confess a truth, humiliating perhaps to human pride;—a very small part only of the opinions of the coolest philosopher are the result of fair reasoning; the rest are formed by his education, his temperament, by the age in which he lives, by trains of thought directed to a particular track through some accidental association—in short, by prejudice."

"It is, in truth, the most absurd of all suppositions, that a human being can be educated, or even nourished and brought up, without imbibing numberless prejudices from every thing which passes around him."

"We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true."

"If an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect."

"It would be difficult to determine whether the age is growing better or worse; for I think our plays are growing like sermons, and our sermons like plays."

"Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?"

"So fades a summer cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o’er; So gently shuts the eye of day; So dies a wave along the shore."

"Life! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear,;br>Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good morning."

"Friend Monkey is really my favorite of all my books because the Hindu myth on which it is based is my favorite — the myth of the Monkey Lord who loved so much that he created chaos wherever he went. … when you read the Ramayana you’ll come across the story of Hanuman on which I built my version of that very old myth. I love Friend Monkey. I love the story of Hanuman. For many years, it remained in my very blood because he’s someone who loves too much and can’t help it. I don’t know where I first heard of him, but the story remained with me and I knew it would come out of me somehow or other. But I didn’t know what shape it would take."

"I actually believe she liked the film a lot more than she let on publicly ... You have to remember that she was, above all, a great storyteller. And in the long line of storytellers who have faith in an oral tradition, who believe that for a great book or books to survive, they have to be retold or reinvented for each generation"

"Pamela Travers appears and disappears as magically as the nanny she created. The New Yorker is the latest to discover the real Travers, the Australian who invented Mary Poppins 70 years ago. Travers told me in 1995, a year before her death, that she would talk of her work, but never of herself. In her lifetime, a biography was impossible, partly because she left so many false trails. Luckily, she also left a paper trail of truth at her London home and in a Sydney library."

"She felt very much alone. She did not make friends very easily, but I don't want to make out that she was always miserable. When she was in middle age, she was quite a charming and lively person, because the actress in her would come out. She'd been an actor, as I said earlier on. It wasn't until she became a guru herself after Gurdjieff died, that she became a rather self-important, morose kind of Pamela."